


warm like you

by snowandfire



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, mai defense squad, soft maiko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26361835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowandfire/pseuds/snowandfire
Summary: [people around the capital talk about mai being gloomy and cold, and it bothers the fire lord]or: soft maiko
Relationships: Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 280





	warm like you

A lot of people talk about her. ‘She’s so gloomy and cold’. ‘Never seen a future _fire_ lady so frigid.’ ‘Does she even love him?’ There are letters snuck into the palace sometimes, from women who think they could do so much better. Better for him or better for the nation. Sometimes both. Zuko burns them on principle, but it bothers him. 

Sure, his friends like Mai. Aang loves seeing Mai. He brightens up the second he sets eyes on her and asks about her all the time. These days Sokka comes around specifically to see her, and not him. Which he tries unsuccessfully not to take too personally. 

_“I helped you break your dad out of a maximum security prison!”_

_“Sure, but Mai and I are gonna bake the world’s biggest fruit tart!”_

So that’s fine. His friends aren’t the problem. Probably because they know her. It’s the people that don’t know her that are the problem. They just assume, and he hates that. He doesn’t want to see it hurt her. All that talk. 

“Zuko, what’s wrong?” Mai asks. She’s sitting next to him and the red of her clothes is only slightly darker than the red of the sofa cushions. 

That’s another thing about her. She’s always been able to read him. She knows him better than anyone. And more than that, she’s not afraid to cut to the chase and call him out when he’s stuck inside his head. That’s how she helps. That’s what he needs. 

“Nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing, look at me,” Mai turns his face and looks at him. 

There’s one more thing. The way she touches him. Like it’s easy. She doesn’t flinch when her soft fingertips brush against scarred skin. She never has. And her eyes. Warm golden brown, like the Earth, like chocolate and honey. Her touch brings him home.

“They talk about you! They say that you’re cold, or not good for me. How can they say things like that! They--”

“Zuko.”

“How come it doesn’t make you mad?!” 

She kisses him softly, she feels so warm against him, “It just doesn’t bother me.”

“Why?”

“It just doesn’t.” 

He looks at her, trying to figure out if she’s telling the truth. He holds her hand and squeezes it. _Warm._ He reaches forward to caress her cheek. _Warm_ , _warm, warm._

“I don’t get it,” he admits finally, “I don’t get how they don’t see that you...” 

She rolls her eyes, but her expression is fond, “They don’t have to get it.” 

In the air is an unspoken question. _What do you think about it?_

He remembers how her hands feel in his hair. _Warm, warm, warm._ The way she peppers kisses on his face in the early hours of the morning. The way she looks right when she first wakes up, with her hair all messy, curled against his bare chest. He loves that no one else gets to see her like that. 

He thinks about the pranks she plays on him. How the Avatar’s lemur is now her cunning little accomplice. The way it’s so easy to find her in a crowd, the way she’s _barely_ smiling, but doesn’t break eye contact with him. Even from a distance, she steadies him. 

He thinks about how she looks playing with her little brother. Rocking him on her knee. Reading him stories. The way she chases Tom-Tom around the palace halls, dragging Zuko by the hand. Her grip is _warm, warm, warm._ She’s so beautiful. Why can’t they see that?

“I love you. They should love you.” 

She laughs, “Don’t be such a child.” 

“Mai you don’t understand--”

“I do understand,” she says quickly, “Believe me Zuko, I understand.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“They used to talk about you too. Before. That you were a traitor. That I could do better than...the banished prince,” she says it quietly, these kinds of things are hard for her to say. Zuko knows that. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” 

She sighs, “ _You_ don’t have to be sorry, you idiot.”

He’s tempted to apologize again. For being an idiot. But she just said not to be sorry. He considers. Then just blurts out the first thing on his mind. 

“No one’s warm like you.” 

This wasn’t really an invitation for her to climb into his lap, but she seems to have interpreted it like that. So that’s good. That means it was an okay thing to say. Better than okay, if the look in her eyes means anything. She looks like she’s discovered a fun new game. 

“Not even Aang? Mr. Sunshine himself?” she demands, adjusting her position slightly. 

He grips her waist to steady her, “Not even him.”

“Sokka and Katara?” 

“Of course not, they’re from the South Pole.” 

“Toph?” 

“She thinks punching is a love language.” 

Mai punches him in the arm, but not too hard, “She’s not wrong.” 

“Does that mean you love me?” 

She holds his face in both her hands and kisses him. Warm, and soft, and slow. 

“Not the way Toph loves you.” 

“Thank the spirits.” 

“What about Ty Lee?” 

He smiles even before he makes the joke, “Well you’re definitely _hotter_.” 

She blushes at that. The warm crimson colors her cheeks and he follows it with his eyes all the way down her neck. Watches her as she dips her forehead down until it’s resting against his. _Warm._

“What about that guy that tried to kill you in Ba Sing Se? The one with the wheat,” she whispers. 

“I think the fact that he tried to kill me speaks for itself.” 

“What about that girl in the Earth kingdom? The one you took out on a date, she was nice right? Easy. Not like me.” 

“Yeah, she wasn’t like you,” Zuko says. He sees the expression in her eyes change for a second. 

“That was the problem,” Zuko continues, “She wasn’t like you.”

“Okay,” Mai says, resting her face in the crook of his neck, he can feel her smile against his skin, “Then let them talk.” 

Yeah. Let them have their talk.

He has _her_. And he knows when he looks at her. She's everything. 

**Author's Note:**

> come scream about maiko with me at @itszukkatime


End file.
